Digital can help manufacturers outperform their competition

Marketing in a manufacturing company comes with its unique set of challenges. Manufacturers are probably slower to adopt to the fact that good marketing, especially good digital marketing, has been seen to, and can, make a significant impact on their customer acquisition and revenue.

The interesting thing is that in other functions that are key to their business, manufacturers are investing or planning to invest heavily on digital. Functions such as operations and core engineering/manufacturing are very much in the digitalization cross hairs of manufacturing leaders.

However, in terms of digital marketing, the trends in manufacturing companies are somewhat different.

So, how can marketers in manufacturing companies get started if they do want to leverage digital to drive acquisition?

Create thought leadership – Your prospects need to see that you bring innovative ideas and trusted expertise to the table. For a manufacturing company to strengthen their stature as a thought leader, we recommend publishing whitepapers, blogs that demonstrate industry knowledge or product training, hosting or sponsoring webinars and attending industry events and trade shows on regular basis.

Leverage low hanging fruit, such as keywords, PPC ads and SEO - A well-honed digital marketing strategy that incorporates keywords, PPC ads and SEO will ensure that upon searching for the appropriate expertise, prospects/customers can easily find your company online. Generally, your target customers are the ones that are located in specific regions, where your company may have distributors and locations. By taking advantage of this fact, you can create region-specific web pages and drive traffic to them using keywords and PPC ads. That way, when a customer searches for “Equipment Manufacturer in UAE,” they find your company.

Empower through social - Manufacturers who are on top of their games are active on social media channels to publish original content, network with professionals and share industry expertise. Social media channels such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc. are the most effective platforms to generate leads and increase the visibility of your brand.

Consider an engaging website – Investing in a global website with regional and multi-lingual capabilities (for those manufacturers in multiple markets) built on a strong marketing and content platform would open opportunities for your company to keep your prospects/customers engaged. To do that, you have to provide great customer experience to through personalized 1:1 interactions. Your website should be able to tell you where your customers are coming from and what exactly do they want. Marketers can test content for how well it engages audiences and see exactly how their site will look and act before going live, simulating different conditions like content preference, geo-location as well as profile attributes.

The experience doesn't end here; there's much more to explore. The best digital marketing platforms use intelligence from your visitors’ current sessions and past visits to drive personalization. Basis your comprehension from analytics, you can target/retarget your leads to finally convert them without fail. To gain more insights on this and other best practices, click here.